Understanding the village

Today the highlights of the day included teaching kids chess, teaching them how to tell time and going into the village after school.

I realize that I am almost failing at teaching them chess. At times it seems impossible. I remembered advice of my own chess teacher, national master Bruce Baker "just let them play." He is right. To maintain the interest in the game the only thing that works is actually letting them play. It doesn't really matter that they don't know the rules. As long as they are interested in learning. Today I miserably failed at teaching to work the queen on the board. Children did not understand the exercise. They could not follow me. It was a battle I lost. I gave up after 30 minutes of intense trying to explain how the queen is the most powerful piece. They seem to move the queen in every possible direction. I don't think they understand me. I felt hopeless. Finally I told them to just play. It does not matter how. Just play. They suddenly got all lightened up and started playing some game I don't even know. The pawns were moving 4 squares up and the queen moved from any square to any square.

After a hard hour of trying to teach chess I decided to stop for today and study how to tell time. We have been doing time related exercises for a while now and kids are slowly getting it. Sorab was helping me. He speaks Hindi to them and yells sometimes in Hindi to calm them down. Time exercise went successful overall. We made each kid stand up and ask the other kid a time related question like "what time do you brush your teeth?". Then the other kid had to show on the paper clock the time and the first kid would repeat the full answer like "Ashish brushes his teeth at 9 o'clock".

We wrapped up the lessons with the daily prayer around 2:50 pm and headed into the village to talk to each family to find out why they stopped sending their children to DAAN school. Lately the number of students has dropped significantly. The villagers on the hills stopped sending them down to school. We wanted to know what's going on.

Manju, s 16-year-old from our school, has agreed to be our guide into the village. Sorab, the 20 year old Indian volunteer from local community, and me would go from door to door and meet the families.

It was shocking to see the poverty and conditions the villagers lived on the rocky hills. Most houses were either made of brick, mud, paper or plastic or some kind of combination of any of these. Some "houses" were very small. It was hard to imagine the family of 4 fitting in such a tight place.

The first house was a family of 5. The eldest daughter (of about 13-14 years old) stopped attending classes. When we asked why? The mother answered "she is married now, no need for her to go to school". The girl in pink on the picture below is that girl. I remember seeing her before in class.

Manju kept leading us into the rocky hills where we discovered many other families whose kids I immediately recognized. On the picture below Manju is walking ahead. Manju, by the way, is also married but still attends classes daily.

The next family was very friendly. Their lovely son Karan was always active in classes. I recognized him right away. The family of 5 lives in a tiny clay/plastic house. Karan looks so much like his dad. He is the shortest one on the picture below.

Looking down from the hill into Karan's house covered by blue plastic and stones I couldn't help but compare the newer high rises the Udapurians are building in the valleys between the hills. Such a drastic contrast. The tiny house made of plastic and clay vs the 10 floor high rise with garage.

We met few other families. Some said they don't want to send kids down to DAAN because there have been many fights between the kids of different settlements. Maybe fights between those who live in paper/plastic houses and newer settlements? Not sure.

It was hot to climb around the hills. It was an awakening experience.